


rise

by arsenicjay



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bittersweet, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Injury, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 07:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3165695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicjay/pseuds/arsenicjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between graduating and growing up Iwaizumi finds a thousand moments hung between them, as plentiful as the glowing little planets and stars Oikawa insists on sticking up on his ceiling. </p><p>And somewhere along the way, they grow up and learn; they fall and then pick themselves up again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rise

**Author's Note:**

> Because as much as I love my baby owls and brotps, I am endlessly drawn to characters with a self-destructive streak a mile wide. IwaOi has always been one of my 'end-game' pairings; I've been meaning to write something for them for a while now. And if anyone wants to crank up the feels, I spent most of my time writing this fic while listening to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JznXx1Ns374) \- particularly with the chorus in mind.

They graduate and it’s a time of celebration, of excitement and anticipation for the future.

Oikawa throws his graduate cap into the crowd with an enormous grin on his face that only widens when it disappears into a crowd of shouting girls. Iwaizumi knocks him over the head for good measure but even that doesn’t seem to deter Oikawa’s good humour.

It doesn’t begrudge Iwaizumi though, and he can’t help but get caught up in the festivities and thrum of hope. Everyone here is eager to see where the future will take them.

Oikawa goes on to receive a sports scholarship for a university in Tokyo. Iwaizumi ends up receiving offers to study at universities in both Tokyo and Osaka, and he spends a few days mulling over his choices, much to Oikawa’s poorly hidden frustration.

It was never really a question though, and the year ends with the two of them hurriedly organising plans to share an apartment just on the outskirts of Tokyo’s main CBD, close to both of their elected universities.

\---

It’s good for a few months. Iwaizumi studies hard and Oikawa intersperses his own studies with volleyball practices that run late into the night. They get along well enough that it’s like nothing’s changed since high school; they fall into the pattern of living with each other as if it’s simply a natural progression.

Then Oikawa loses his first university volleyball match and Iwaizumi watches with a sinking heart as history repeats itself when Oikawa starts disappearing for longer, later, and returns with his shirt still damp from sweat, exertion furrowed on his brow.

He pulls Oikawa aside one afternoon and asks him in a low voice, “What are you doing?” but Oikawa brushes him off with a laugh and walks off to the gymnasium for the night.

When he returns with a barely noticeable limp (Iwaizumi _always_ notices though) and a grimace that speaks more about the situation than Oikawa ever will himself, Iwaizumi sets his foot down. He drags a protesting Oikawa to the couch and sits him down with a heavy thud, grabs the unused icepack from the freezer and presses it over Oikawa’s propped up leg.

It’s always his knee. Ever since that fall back in their first year of high school, that had Oikawa benched for a month and watching every game they played without him, lips pressed together in a thin, unhappy line.

“You care too much,” Oikawa says eventually, when the silence between them grows uncomfortable. “It’s nothing; I just didn’t stretch it enough before so it’s a bit sore.”

“You don’t care enough,” Iwaizumi snaps back. He pinches the underside of Oikawa’s thigh hard to emphasize his point, and Oikawa yelps.

“I miss playing with you,” Oikawa complains. He leans back with a huff, and Iwaizumi takes it as a sign that he’s accepted his fate for tonight at least, and will let Iwaizumi fuss without further protest. “I don’t trust anyone on that team like I do you.”

“Unlike you, some of us have our studies to focus on,” Iwaizumi retorts, carefully shifting the ice pack to the other side of Oikawa’s knee. “We can’t all be professional level volleyball players.”

“You could’ve made it though,” Oikawa says, his voice serious. His eyes have slid over to scrutinise Iwaizumi. It feels a little unnerving and Iwaizumi refuses to look up at him properly. “You would’ve been good enough to make the team. We could’ve played together.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t respond to that, just resolutely stares down at the ice pack. It’s getting soft in his hand already, and they don’t have another one in the freezer, he thinks.

“You don’t even come to my games, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says almost sullenly as he tilts his head back and closes his eyes. “Friends support friends- ouch, hey!”

There’s a red mark where Iwaizumi has pinched Oikawa again, and Oikawa rubs at it ruefully, calloused fingertips pressing into the soft skin of his inner thigh. He’s still wearing his volleyball shorts, the ones from high school that are just a tad too small and ride up far too high whenever Oikawa bends at the hip.

Like when he’s sitting down like this with Iwaizumi kneeling on the floor, swallowing as he averts his gaze.

“Can you get up?” Iwaizumi says gruffly, as he takes off the ice pack and examines Oikawa’s knee for any swelling.

“I did walk home by myself you know,” Oikawa replies mildly. He’s slow to stand up though, more cautious when he puts weight on his leg. But he smiles after a moment and throws his arms out in his usual carefree manner. “All good Iwa-chan. Thanks for fixing my leg.”

“It’s not fixed, you dumbass. Keep icing it for tonight, I’ll chuck a few ice cubes in a plastic bag,” Iwaizumi tells him as he returns to the kitchen. He calls back over his shoulder, “And take a shower, you stink of sweat.”

“You always take such good care of me. What would I do without you?” Oikawa bats his eyelids at Iwaizumi, and only narrowly misses the ice cube that gets thrown at him with a growl. “Okay, okay I’m going!”

But apparently Oikawa isn’t finished pestering him for the night, and when Iwaizumi later turns around after packing his lunch for the next day, he finds Oikawa sitting at the counter with nothing more than a towel slung loosely around his hips. He considers it a small blessing that he manages to hold back his splutter of surprise.

“Did you have those ice cubes?” Oikawa asks him, leaning forward on the stone surface of the bench as he reaches for a banana in the fruit bowl. Then in what seems like an afterthought, “Come to my next game.”

“What? Yeah, here catch,” Iwaizumi says as throws the ziplock bag at Oikawa. “And why should I? I don’t want to hear a hundred girls screaming your name while you flirt on court.”

“Cause you never come!” Oikawa complains. He takes an ungraceful bite of his banana and gestures his displeasure. “How am I supposed to win when my number one fan isn’t there?”

“What- _your number one fan_?” Iwaizumi spins around and settles his irritated glare at Oikawa. “You are insufferable-”

But then Oikawa interrupts him with, “I promise you those shorts go much higher when I do a jump serve,” and Iwaizumi freezes.

There’s a calculated, knowing gleam in Oikawa’s eyes.

“Who would want to see that?” Iwaizumi retorts, but it’s a second too late and next thing he knows, he’s beating a quick retreat to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

His heart is echoing in his chest something fierce.

Iwaizumi isn’t an idiot, he knew Oikawa was bound to pick up on it sooner or later (though probably sooner knowing how perceptive Oikawa could be when he suspected something). But he hadn’t expected to be called out on it. Maybe he had been hoping that they would both just ignore the fact that Iwaizumi’s gaze had started to roam whenever Oikawa came back flushed from practice, or when he shamelessly walked out of the bathroom after forgetting his clothes for the hundredth time.

Hoped that they would ignore the way Iwaizumi’s heart skipped a beat every time Oikawa slung an arm around his shoulders to peer at whatever Iwaizumi was studying, and the gentle warmth of Oikawa’s breath brushed over his ears.

There’s a quiet, unobtrusive knocking at his door but Iwaizumi can’t bring himself to open it.

He curses under his breath and presses his hands to his eyes.

Exactly when did he fall in love with Oikawa?

He has no clue.

All he knows is that he doesn’t go to Oikawa’s games because they remind him too much of high school, and it sits wrong with him, makes him ill to the stomach because he’s not on court with Oikawa. Not anymore.

He’s just a spectator now and that’s easier to be okay with when he’s at home and not watching every one of Oikawa’s tosses with a painful yearning that sears into the bones of his body - every fibre of his being wishing desperately that he would be the one who would hit them.

It’s just one less part of Oikawa’s life that he gets to be in now.

\---

Oikawa doesn’t bring it up the next day, or the day after that, or even the day after _that_ and Iwaizumi starts fervently hoping that whatever it was, it’s blown over and he’ll be left alone to get over his stupid crush in peace.

(It’s not a crush, says the voice in the back of his head, and he stifles it with a flare of anger because he knows it’s _true_.)

But he does start going to Oikawa’s games despite his better judgement, and he sits sullenly on the highest row where he can’t see their faces properly. For all his talk, Oikawa meshes with his new team exceptionally well and they form a well-oiled, synchronised machine that powers straight through to victory. It’s not a surprise though; even in high school Iwaizumi knew that Oikawa played at a different level to the rest of them. At the end of the match, he goes down to the court and the look of delight on Oikawa’s face is so genuine that Iwaizumi forgets to breathe for a second.

“I thought I saw you up there, but you were so small and tiny that I thought no way, can’t be Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says with a frown as he casually towels the sweat off his face. “But then I ended up playing a real good game and I realised of course it had to be you. I only play that well when Iwa-chan is around, after all.”

It takes a good few seconds for the words to register and then Iwaizumi is flushing red and slapping Oikawa up the head harder than he usually does. Oikawa ends up doubled over, his hands clutched his head as he moans his pain and Iwaizumi suddenly notices the wide-eyed stares he’s getting from the rest of the university volleyball team.

“I was about to introduce you as my favourite spiker too,” Oikawa whines, rubbing the back of his head when he finally straightens up.

He still does though, pulling a reluctant Iwaizumi forward to meet his teammates and introducing him with the kind of flourish and grandiosity that only Oikawa Tooru can manage.

The rest of the team decide to go for dinner in Shimokitazawa, just west of Shibuya and Iwaizumi gradually relaxes as he finds himself embracing the familiarity and comfort of a volleyball team.

Drinks go around; all on the captain’s shout (it’s weird to think that Oikawa isn’t a captain, not here on this team, he muses) and Iwaizumi ends up pleasantly buzzed and laughing along with the rest of them. It almost feels like coming home, even if he didn’t play the game with them, and gratitude sparks up in him with how easily Oikawa’s team envelopes him as one of their own.

Oikawa, on the other hand, drinks far more than he should and ends up slouched against Iwaizumi’s shoulder, laughing softly to himself at random intervals as the dinner comes to a close. Iwaizumi has to haul Oikawa up when it’s time to go back to the station, firmly holding him around the waist when Oikawa starts to tip over the moment he’s left to stand alone.

By the time they get back to the apartment, Iwaizumi is dead tired (hauling around Oikawa’s weight isn’t easy, and he’s not nearly as fit as he used to be four months ago) and he unceremoniously drops Oikawa on the couch before fetching them both glasses of water.

It’s not a surprise when Oikawa waves his own glass away with a tired hand in a childish sulk and Iwaizumi leaves it on the table instead.

It _is_ a surprise when Oikawa abruptly snags Iwaizumi’s shirt and drags him awkwardly onto his lap, Iwaizumi’s own glass sloshing messily between them.

“Oi- you idiot-!” Iwaizumi splutters, the cold shock of water on his stomach making him jerk back.

But before he can scramble off of Oikawa, he’s being dragged back forward and then Oikawa’s lips are suddenly on his, soft and bitter from the beer he had drank earlier. To Iwaizumi’s credit, he does struggle for a few seconds. Then he’s lost in the warmth of Oikawa’s mouth, the hot slide of his tongue and it’s easy to forget why he would ever want to move away from this.

When they part, Oikawa is watching him under heavy lidded eyes, licking his lips as his alcohol tinged breath brushes over the hollow of Iwaizumi’s neck.

It takes Iwaizumi a moment to gather his wits, and then he’s shoving Oikawa back roughly and demanding, “What the fuck was that?”

“I got tired of waiting,” Oikawa says, as if it’s as simple as that. He’s reaching for Iwaizumi again, but Iwaizumi slaps his hand away and stares at him instead.

The glass lays forgotten beside them, a dark stain spreading over the plush green seat.

“Come on, just kiss me again,” Oikawa says. His voice is low and coy.

Iwaizumi dimly registers that he’s still straddling Oikawa’s legs, his half hard cock nudging Oikawa’s thigh.

“Why?” Iwaizumi manages to say. His own voice is a thin rasp, and he swallows uselessly. “If you’re just fucking around…”

“I’m not,” Oikawa insists. He spreads his hands in a show of innocence, his face relaxing into something open and inviting. “I tried! Dropping hints, little comments. Walking out naked in front of you. Asking you to help me with stretching. Touching your arm whenever mmf-!”

Oikawa tries to keep talking, but Iwaizumi suddenly has his hand clamped over Oikawa’s mouth as he stares down at him, aghast. _That_ was Oikawa’s idea of a confession?

Iwaizumi doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Something rough brushes across his palm, and Iwaizumi jerks his hand away in disgust when he realises Oikawa is licking him.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Iwaizumi tells him, meaning every word. “A huge, fucking idiot.”

Oikawa hums at him, the beginnings of a smug smile growing at the corner of his lips. “I know you like me back, Iwa-chan. So are we going to do it?”

“What the fuck,” Iwaizumi growls, and he snatches up the couch cushion beside them and slams it into Oikawa’s face. He hears a muffled yelp from the other side. “You’re drunk to high hell, Asskawa, and we aren’t doing shit until you can say that to my face while sober.”

He hears something that sounds suspiciously like, _“Why do you think I got drunk? Stupid Iwa-chan!”_ but he ignores it in favour of finally pushing himself off Oikawa’s lap and staggering back to his own room.

He ends up jerking off as he leans against his bedroom door, listening to Oikawa move around in the other room and he’s only barely able to stifle his moan when he comes.

\---

It’s noticeably harder to drag the same confession out of Oikawa when he’s not blind drunk, but Iwaizumi manages.

To be completely honest though, it was more like Iwaizumi threatening not to make Oikawa breakfast until he got his shit together, and Oikawa whining throughout the entire ordeal, only to end with a sullen, _“Yes fine, I like you, god Iwa-chan you take the fun out of everything.”_

After that, things take a noticeably more serious tone when Iwaizumi finally asks, “What do you want from this?”

“Want from what, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asks him brightly, very obviously pleased now that he’s finally managed to wheedle his share of omelette from Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi gestures vaguely, ears burning a little. “You like me, I like you. Now what?”

“Now we date,” Oikawa says, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “You make me lunch, I kiss you goodnight. That sort of thing.”

“We do that already though,” Iwaizumi says with a frown. Because they do; anyone looking into their lives for the past months would probably agree that they’re both already charmingly domestic.

Though, Iwaizumi only makes Oikawa lunch _sometimes_ , and Oikawa only pecks his forehead goodnight when he’s feeling particularly cheeky and suspects Iwaizumi is too tired to slap him away.

“Well what do you want?” Oikawa asks him, and Iwaizumi grimaces. It’s that serious tone, the one where Oikawa starts plotting out his strategies; the kind of cool observation that ends with him striking his target dead on. It unnerves Iwaizumi a little, to be on the receiving end of that tone.

“I don’t know,” Iwaizumi says eventually, turning back to the stove to rescue the last omelette.

Oikawa just hums in reply.

It fades into something easy between them though, far more than Iwaizumi expected. As the days pass into weeks, and then a month, it feels like another natural progression. Oikawa is still a jerk, still nags him with that awful teasing lilt to his voice, but it’s softened by the way Oikawa unashamedly asks if they can hold hands when they walk into one of Oikawa’s games, the way Oikawa carefully cups his face and kisses him properly, sweetly, for the first time right outside Iwaizumi’s last class of the day, after waiting the hour for it to finish.

Sex is just another natural progression, and it took only five days after the initial confession for Iwaizumi to relent, letting Oikawa pull him out of his clothes and into his bed.

It’s everything he imagined sex with Oikawa to be; Iwaizumi is caught halfway between being duly awestruck and surprisingly letdown.

It takes a few weeks of mindless groping and rough fucking against the wall at inopportune times for Iwaizumi to finally bring them back to the bedroom, where he takes Oikawa apart slowly and marvels in the creature he’s managed to catch.

It’s not until Oikawa clings to him, elegant legs wrapped tight around his waist with calloused hands desperately clutching Iwaizumi’s face as he whispers, _“I love you,”_ before he’s coming with a languid moan that Iwaizumi realises no, he’s got it the wrong way around.

He traces the same words in return on Oikawa’s naked back when he’s stretched out and sleeping, later that night.

But he feels like a coward, so he jostles Oikawa awake with a groan of exhaustion and kisses the words into his lax mouth instead.

It feels right when Oikawa smiles against his lips, content and for once, with nothing else to say.

\---

It starts to go wrong when Oikawa falls during a game.

One moment he’s setting up to do his jump serve, rising into the air with all the grace and ease of a well-practiced motion, then Iwaizumi blinks and Oikawa is sprawled on the floor, a sickening _pop_ still resounding in his eardrums.

The roar in his ears doesn’t lessen as he rushes down to be courtside, ignoring the officials and other teammates gathering around in worry.

Oikawa is trying to sit up, propped up on his elbows as he stares down at his leg in something resembling horror. A medical officer is by his side, both hands carefully on his right knee as he asks Oikawa slowly worded questions. Oikawa doesn’t reply; his face is pale and he’s breathing hard, barely stifled whimpers of pain catching on the end of each unsteady lungful.

“What happened? Are you alright?” Iwaizumi asks him urgently when he manages to squeeze through the crowd and kneel next to Oikawa. There’s no response though, Oikawa continuing to stare at his knee as pain twists his expression into a tight grimace and Iwaizumi directs his question to the medical officer.

 _It’s hard to tell right now_ , is all he gets told. And then, _help us move him off court._

They settle Oikawa on the bench in the change rooms and give him an icepack with the instructions to keep icing it for the next half hour. Iwaizumi can see Oikawa grinding his teeth when his worried teammates finally file back out to finish the game.

He sits quietly with Oikawa, who doesn’t react other than flick his gaze between his knee and the closed door to the court. It’s barely twenty minutes before Oikawa starts moving restlessly and his voice is hesitant when he finally says, “I think I can get up again.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t move though, doesn’t take the icepack off of his knee until Oikawa starts trying to push him away, insisting, “I can get up now, let me get up.”

It doesn’t take a genius to realise how desperately Oikawa wants to be able to stand up. Iwaizumi reluctantly moves against his better judgement, letting Oikawa carefully swing his leg over the bench and onto the floor. He breathes uncertainly.

“Help me, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asks, reaching out tentatively and Iwaizumi grabs his hand, sliding his other arm around Oikawa’s waist.

“Be careful,” Iwaizumi grunts.

For a second, Oikawa manages to stand upright, his weight supported by his own two feet and Iwaizumi’s arm. Then he pulls away from Iwaizumi and he’s suddenly dropping, Iwaizumi barely able to catch him before he crumples to the floor.

The look on Oikawa’s face both terrifies him and breaks his heart.

They go to A&E later, after Oikawa gets to watch his team mates win without him from the side of the court, bottom lip white and bloodless between his teeth.

The doctors test his knee, asking him to stand but Oikawa barely manages a second before he’s collapsing to the floor again, expression growing more and more stony. They tell him it’s most likely a knee sprain, but with his history of injury, he should come back in a few weeks if there’s no improvement. Oikawa leaves the hospital with his knee firmly wrapped, a prescription for painkillers in his pocket and a pair of crutches, Iwaizumi silent by his side.

When they get back to the apartment (it’s a slow process up the stairs at the front of the building and Oikawa refuses Iwaizumi’s help now), Iwaizumi prods a protesting Oikawa into bed and gives him another ice pack.

He mentally makes a note to buy more tomorrow.

He tries once to ask Oikawa how he’s taking the news, a careful invitation to let Oikawa talk. But now that the shock has run its course, he doesn’t get more than Oikawa’s usual defensive humour, and his words slide off of Oikawa’s shiny new glass exterior.

In the end, he falls asleep next to Oikawa, an arm flung over Oikawa’s stomach so he knows if he tries to get up again in the night. But for once, Oikawa stays put and the morning finds them both half curled into each other (Oikawa’s injured leg is straight and swollen at the knee, but neither of them mention it).

\---

“It doesn’t hurt,” Oikawa repeats for the third time, exasperation clear in his voice. “It stopped hurting about two hours after I fell.”

Iwaizumi lets his disbelief show on his face and Oikawa relents. “Alright maybe not two hours. But it was the worst when I first fell. Like someone had just electrocuted me, right from my hip to my foot. Now it’s just a twinge. Barely anything to worry about.”

“The swelling only just went down and you’ve been on painkillers the entire time,” Iwaizumi points out, though it is true. It’s been five days since the fall and only this morning could he look at Oikawa’s knee and not suspect anything was wrong with it. If he didn’t know otherwise, that is.

“I can even walk on it, look,” Oikawa says, then he starts to push himself up before Iwaizumi can react. He manages a few seconds before he’s grabbing the edge of the kitchen counter and muttering, “Sort of.”

“At this rate you’ll trip down the stairs and break your face as well,” Iwaizumi tells him, ignoring Oikawa’s subsequent retort about how he was _obviously_ still jealous about Oikawa’s good looks.

“I think you should stay home,” Iwaizumi says instead, as he finishes packing his lunch and reaches down to grab his bag.

“I think you should kiss me,” Oikawa replies, frowning hard. “Are you going to leave me all alone at home again?”

Iwaizumi dutifully straightens up to leave a kiss on Oikawa’s cheek, taking the chance to brush away one of Oikawa’s wayward curls. “Yes. You have plenty of studying to catch up on, don’t slack off.”

“Iwa-chan is being really nice to me lately,” Oikawa hums, looking quite pleased with himself. “I should injure my knee more often if this is the treatment I get.”

“Try it and I’ll injure your face.”

“Don’t be rude, Iwa-chan!”

Iwaizumi can’t help but smile a little when he closes the apartment door, leaving Oikawa inside. It’s nice to see Oikawa a little more cheerful, and Iwaizumi takes their banter as a healthy sign of Oikawa’s mental state. Not once has he complained about wanting to go back to volleyball practice, even when a few of his teammates dropped by to see how he was doing.

But it doesn’t take long for that to change, and a week later, Iwaizumi finds himself vehemently arguing when Oikawa insists that he needs to start going back to the gymnasium.

In the end he agrees, so long as Oikawa lets him come along to keep a careful eye on their practice session. Oikawa complains that Iwaizumi doesn’t trust him, and he doesn’t bother to refute it.

He trusts Oikawa with everything but himself.

His concern is to no avail though, because Oikawa doesn’t even try to stand up on court (though Iwaizumi had been wondering how he intended to play when he still needed his crutches for distances more than a few steps). All he does is sit on one of the courtside chairs and toss the volleyball up into the air, chatting amicably to his team as they practice spiking and one of the new combos.

It’s then that Iwaizumi realises it’s not so much the game that Oikawa misses, but everything about it. Oikawa lives and breathes volleyball; even more so now that he’s angling towards a professional level. Just being on court with his team, the latticed surface of a volleyball in his hand, the squeak of sneakers on the polished floor - Oikawa is happier than Iwaizumi has seen all week.

They leave the gymnasium later in the night, Oikawa still in good spirits and Iwaizumi equally pleased after being asked to fill in a slot for one of the practice matches.

“I’m going to have to start practicing again properly soon,” Oikawa suddenly says, as they slowly make their way down to their apartment building from the station.

It’s drizzling, tiny raindrops falling around them as the autumn sun sets, leaving its final rays of orange and red glowing on the horizon. Progress is slow, as Oikawa tries to navigate using his crutches while still refusing Iwaizumi’s help.

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, keeping a careful eye on the footpath in front of Oikawa. It wouldn’t do for Oikawa to slip on the wet pavement, not when he’s recovering. “I know.”

“You don’t mind?” Oikawa asks, sounding curious.

Iwaizumi shrugs a little. He won’t stop Oikawa unless it’s completely necessary and even then, he knows Oikawa needs to start exercising that knee again if he wants to stay on top of his game.

“Maybe you should see a physiotherapist,” Iwaizumi says. “Just to make sure you don’t mess it up again or something.”

“It was just a sprain,” Oikawa replies, his tone careless. “It’ll be back to normal in a few weeks.”

Iwaizumi glances at him from the side of his eye, but Oikawa doesn’t seem to notice. Or he’s deliberately not drawing attention to the look. Stubborn as always, Iwaizumi thinks with a resigned sigh.

“What’s that sigh for, huh?” Oikawa asks, pausing in his small steps.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I am not! I’m injured, be nicer to me please.”

“I’ll leave you out here if you don’t hurry up.”

Oikawa grumbles something incoherent, but they start their slow pace up again.

It takes them another half an hour to get to the apartment when Oikawa suddenly decides that he _needs_ yakitori from the nearby convenience store, much to Iwaizumi’s exasperation.

Then it turns out that Oikawa conveniently left his wallet at home and Iwaizumi ends up walking home with a scowl while Oikawa grins as he tries to hold both his crutches along with his unfairly earned prize in a paper bag.

 

It does go back to normal over the next few weeks, at least in some ways. Oikawa managed to graduate off of his crutches by the second week, hobbling around until he grew more confident and figured out how to wrap his knee properly.

Iwaizumi continues to study, working harder and harder as the final exams for the year loom in the distance and Oikawa returns to practice, eventually participating as a regular again. He doesn’t play as much as he used to when it comes to the official matches though, with the coaches insisting that he needed to keep his activity light; but he always managed to wheedle his way into some time courtside. Iwaizumi still comes to his games with no small amount of trepidation that Oikawa will fall again and this time the universe will not be so kind on him, but they leave each match with both relief and victory thrumming behind them.

Then Iwaizumi returns home after his last exam for the academic year and finds Oikawa on the couch, pale and sweat-damp hair clinging to his neck, an ice pack pressed to his right knee.

“What happened?” is Iwaizumi’s immediate reaction, dropping his bag where he stands so he can walk around and examine Oikawa’s knee.

“Was climbing the stairs,” Oikawa says, his voice tight.

It’s swelling up again, Iwaizumi realises and he touches the joint carefully. Hot too.

“You don’t usually have trouble with stairs though?” Iwaizumi questions as he takes over from where Oikawa’s hands are holding the ice pack.

Oikawa groans as he leans back, tipping his head over the edge of the couch. “I wasn’t holding the rail properly this time. Stupid. Knee suddenly gave out when I tried stepping up.”

It still doesn’t quite add up, Iwaizumi thinks irritably. He shouldn’t be having trouble with his knee like this, not when he’s been fine for over three months. Not unless-

“Do you always have to hold the handrail when you climb the stairs?” Iwaizumi suddenly asks.

Oikawa doesn’t answer him.

“You don’t do your jump serves anymore either,” Iwaizumi realises. It’s hard to notice when Oikawa doesn’t get as much time on court as he used to, but now that he thinks about it, he hasn’t seen Oikawa do a jump serve since before the incident.

There’s still no reply from Oikawa, his face hidden from where it’s tilted.

“Hey, answer me, Tooru,” Iwaizumi says, his voice cold. “You’re still taking your painkillers too, aren’t you.”

“It’s just taking a while to heal,” Oikawa says, finally sitting up. He stares at his knee. “Bad sprain, remember?”

“Are you sure?” Iwaizumi challenges him.

He sees the moment that Oikawa closes off, stubbornness written across his face as clear as day. Iwaizumi can’t help the growl that sounds from his throat, but he bites it off when he realises it isn’t helping. Oikawa isn’t even looking at him anymore, isn’t looking at his knee. He just watches the wall opposite, his gaze drilling a hole into the blank white surface.

“You should see a doctor again,” Iwaizumi says, and that’s all he’s going to say about it. “Here, I’ll help you get back to the bed.”

It’s hard not to miss the flash of surprise on Oikawa’s face, even as he accepts Iwaizumi’s help. Like he hadn’t expected him to drop the issue so quickly. Iwaizumi isn’t sure why he did himself, actually.

Maybe he’s just tired of arguing with him on this.

It’s easy to walk Oikawa back to his own room, easy to carefully sit him down onto the edge. Oikawa is watching him, Iwaizumi knows as he kneels at Oikawa’s feet and asks if he wants help changing as well.

“What I want,” Oikawa says, as he leans forward to cradle Iwaizumi’s head in his calloused hands. “Is you.”

It’s easy to give in when Oikawa is watching him like that, with hazy eyes and thumbs that rub over the sides of his face.

He undoes Oikawa’s fly, urging him to lie back and shift his hips up so Iwaizumi can pull his pants off. Then he’s mouthing at Oikawa’s already half hard length, dropping kisses around the base, across his twitching thighs until Oikawa is breathlessly begging Iwaizumi to suck him.

It’s easy to oblige, sliding his mouth down the heated shaft of Oikawa’s cock as he listens to him cry out at the first touch of wet pressure.

It makes it easier to forget the knee, red and slightly swollen, dangling over the bed next to him.

\---

Iwaizumi goes back to Miyagi over the spring break, after promising to visit his family some months prior. He leaves Oikawa at the train station back in Tokyo, outside of the shinkansen gates after a quick hug and a threat that he better not return to find Oikawa with anymore injuries. Oikawa just pulls on one of his characteristic, confident grins and assured Iwaizumi he was big enough to take care of himself.

Now Iwaizumi sits on one of the non-reserved seats, absent-mindedly nibbling at his bento box. Comparatively, it’s not a long ride back to Miyagi via shinkansen but it’s not short enough to keep from being bored, he thinks as he twirls his chopsticks between his fingers.

He ends up dozing for the better of part of the trip, and walks out into the afternoon sun at Sendai station less than two hours later.

It doesn’t take him long to find his parents, who had arranged to pick him up and hugs and kisses go around before they pile back into the car. The drive home leaves Iwaizumi with a certain sense of nostalgia - all those tournaments at Sendai gymnasium with the Aoba Jousai team come flooding back as the scenery whips past.

His own room is still the same, and he walks in with surprise, brushing his fingers over his old desk and the little bits and bobs he’d collected over the years.

The rest of the day is spent at home, catching up and exchanging gifts; treats he’d brought back from Tokyo and in return, a hand-made welcome home card from his youngest sister. It’s comforting and familiar, but at the same time, it feels like something is missing.

It’s not until he’s lying awake in his old bed, thumbing the edge of his silent phone that he wonders when Oikawa managed to insinuate himself into Iwaizumi’s idea of ‘home.’

But he doesn’t call Oikawa, doesn’t text him because they both agreed that after a year of living together, some time to themselves was well in order.

Iwaizumi wonders if he’ll start to regret that before the end of his trip.

It’s a needless worry though, and he spends the rest of the week catching up with the old Aoba Jousai team; Kindaichi and Kunimi after running into them at Sendai’s main square, and later, along with some of the other ex-third years, at the park just five minutes from Aoba Jousai’s grounds where they set up an impromptu volleyball game.

“How’s Oikawa?” Matsukawa finally asks when they start their cool down stretches.

“Doing alright,” Iwaizumi answers. He’s not as flexible as he used to be, he finds, frowning as he tries to reach his toes. “He had a fall and sprained his knee again, like back in first year. But it looks like it’s patching up.”

“Professional volleyball, huh,” Watari says wistfully. “That must be great.”

Iwaizumi just shrugs to that. “It takes a toll. Whether it’s worth it or not, I dunno. But Oikawa seems happy.”

He wonders briefly whether to tell them that he and Oikawa were- well. He stops at that, because honestly, he’s still not quite sure what they are. He remembers Oikawa’s serious, _well what do you want_ and his own answering silence.

There’s no denying that things have changed; they’ve both grown, perhaps further into each other but it remains that Iwaizumi really still has no idea what this is. So he keeps quiet about it for now, laughing disarmingly when Watari starts asking him about the girls at university, the same way he’s been brushing off his parent’s prying.

He thinks he does a pretty good job of keeping things under wraps until he runs into Oikawa’s older sister, later that same night. Then he somehow finds himself accepting a coffee and hopelessly trying to dodge Sayuri’s questions.

“How’s Takeru?” Iwaizumi eventually asks, gratefully seizing onto the opportunity to direct the conversation away from Oikawa.

“He’s great, loud as always. I think he wants Oikawa to come back just so he can teach him how to play volleyball again,” Sayuri says thoughtfully. “Try to convince Oikawa to come back once in a while, perhaps. He just ignores me when I tell him our mother misses him.”

Iwaizumi snorts. He had originally tried to make it a combined trip back to Miyagi, but Oikawa had stubbornly refused with a huff and a retort that he didn’t feel particularly up to being smothered in kisses and potentially locked indoors until his knee healed properly.

“So,” Sayuri says suddenly. “I hear you and Oikawa are dating?”

It takes a few seconds for Iwaizumi to process what she had just said, but then he nearly splutters across the table. What do you say to something like that, Iwaizumi wonders frantically.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to say anything about it,” she adds with a slight smile. “Oikawa didn’t. Probably was hoping I’d never find out but it’s obvious when he deliberately tries to be mysterious.”

“Well,” Iwaizumi says, laughing weakly. “It’s not really, er. Official.”

Is it though? All things considering, telling his best friend’s older sister that the two of them fuck on a regular basis and kiss more often than that, yet don’t have name for exactly what they are- it’s a little embarrassing. Perhaps it’s time he and Oikawa had that talk; the thought sends a nervous twinge down into Iwaizumi’s stomach.

Sayuri waves her hand absently, as if it were no big deal and Iwaizumi relaxes a little. Maybe it isn’t such a big deal. Or at least, she’s not too fussed about his lack of answer.

“Just be kind to each other,” Sayuri says. “Be patient. Take it from someone speaking after eight years of marriage and a kid to show for it.”

Iwaizumi flushes a little and Sayuri laughs.

“That’s all the big sister talk you’ll get from me,” she reassures him, and Iwaizumi can’t help but swallow in relief. “Keep me updated on how he is sometimes? We both know he won’t do it himself.”

Iwaizumi agrees and they part into the night in good spirits. He feels a little buoyed by the fact that he thinks he might’ve just gotten Sayuri’s approval and he ends up texting Oikawa, _ur sister knows_.

It only takes a few seconds before he receives a reply: _did she bully it out of you? i bet she did; stand up for yourself iwa-chan!_

He spends the last two days with his family, and when he finally tells his mother that he and Oikawa might be in a relationship, all he gets is a raised eyebrow. It’s not exactly overwhelming support, but it’s not disapproval either, so Iwaizumi wills himself settle with that.

It’s not until he’s about to leave, the last of his bags unloaded from the car at Sendai station that his mother grabs him into a hug and tells him firmly, “Be good to each other,” and he turns away with a nod as a swell of emotion suddenly rushes through him.

Oikawa greets him outside the ticket gates of Tokyo station with the last rays of sunlight streaming in through the filtered slats of the building, right where Iwaizumi had last seen him. It feels like coming home more than anything else this last week.

They end up sprawled on Iwaizumi’s bed, his bags laying haphazardly across the floor where he’d dropped them in the living room, and Oikawa’s welcome back dinner forgotten in the fridge. Iwaizumi is too tired to get up and Oikawa has been pawing at him insistently all during the walk back to the apartment.

“I missed you,” Oikawa says in a whisper, tracing his fingers over Iwaizumi’s arm. “The apartment was so empty.”

“Surprised you didn’t try to throw a party while I was away,” Iwaizumi retorts, but there’s no heat in it and he yawns instead.

“Can’t enjoy a party if you’re not here,” Oikawa says unabashedly, and he curls his arms tighter around Iwaizumi’s waist. His breath tickles the back of Iwaizumi’s neck.

“You sound like a lovestruck teenager,” Iwaizumi grumbles. The warmth of Oikawa’s chest is comforting; the steady pressure of his body nestled alongside his own a reassurance that speaks louder than anything Oikawa could say. Or at least, that’s what Iwaizumi thinks until Oikawa nuzzles closer, presses his lips to Iwaizumi’s skin.

“Maybe not a teenager, but I _am_ lovestruck,” Oikawa mumbles. “Or at least, I love you. Love you lots, Iwa-chan.”

Iwaizumi will never get tired of hearing those words from him.

\---

Not even a month into the new academic year already finds trouble striking up again, this time after a hard-fought volleyball match that had the university team barely, just barely snatching victory back at the last point.

“I need to be able to do this,” Oikawa insists, face flushed as he argues with his coaches.

Iwaizumi watches from the upper floor of the court, a frown growing on his face. Oikawa had been getting too worked up, too frustrated over the past two weeks and it looked like it was finally at bursting point. The university team coaches were still reluctant to let Oikawa back on court full time during matches and Oikawa was doing his best to argue that he was fine.

He still hasn’t done a jump serve, Iwaizumi thinks. Still clutches the handrail when he walks up the stairs in their apartment block.

Later he finds Oikawa angrily tugging his volleyball shirt off in the change rooms, stuffing it into his bag with more force than his usual carefree grace. He’s the last of his team to leave, and he barely spares a glance to Iwaizumi when he sits down on the bench to watch Oikawa.

“Why are you mad?” Iwaizumi finally asks.

“I’m not mad,” Oikawa snaps, stripping off his shorts. They get roughly thrown into his bag as well. “I’m just- frustrated.”

“Why are you frustrated?” Iwaizumi amends. He’s feeling oddly calm, almost distant to Oikawa’s vibrant anger.

“They want me to do more exercises before coming back properly,” Oikawa says, muffled as he wipes a towel over his face. “The ones that are supposed to help prevent you from getting more injuries.”

“Yeah? Sounds like a good idea then.”

“It’s _not_ ,” Oikawa bursts out, turning to glare at Iwaizumi. “Do you have any idea how behind I am on practice right now? I need to be doing the regular exercises, need to be practicing properly already.” He pauses to drag in more air, his face steadily getting more and more red. “I probably have to do twice as much just to get to where I used to be.”

“You can’t speed up recovery,” Iwaizumi shoots back. That familiar anger is building up again, the one that makes an appearance whenever Oikawa is making no sense at all and being reckless. It’s almost a relief from the strange calm of before.

“It’s because of this stupid knee,” Oikawa hisses venomously. He stares down at it, fury etched across his face. “It’s been months already, why isn’t it back to normal yet?”

“Because you’ve been taking shitty care of it,” Iwaizumi replies bluntly. “You need to see a doctor. Get a scan or something and see if there’s something else wrong with it.”

“It’s just a sprain,” Oikawa grits out. He slams his locker shut and Iwaizumi almost flinches from the sudden aggression.

Oikawa never gets physically violent. Not even when Iwaizumi is angrily kicking him in the shin, or head-butting him - he never retaliates with his fists. Just that one time with Kageyama, back in middle school when they were still young and stupid, on the cusp of adolescence with all its drama and tumultuous urgency. Since then Oikawa has only ever been aggressive in his words and now Iwaizumi can feel the cold tendril of worry winding its way back into his heart.

“You know what,” Oikawa suddenly says, grim determination setting over his face. “Just go home early. I’m going to keep practicing.”

Iwaizumi stares at him. “Are you an idiot? No you’re fucking not.”

“Just go,” Oikawa says, his tone already flippant as he reopens his locker and starts to pull his volleyball uniform back on. “I’ll be home before midnight.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Iwaizumi asks him incredulously. He stands up, hands clenching into fists.

“You can’t tell me what to do, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, but whatever playfulness is gone from his voice. Now it’s just frank coldness and it’s infuriating.

Iwaizumi seizes Oikawa by the front of his shirt, pushing him up against the locker as he hisses, “Yes I fucking can. You’re not practicing anymore today, you’ve done enough damage.”

Even now he’s mindful of Oikawa’s knee, careful not to jostle it too much as Oikawa grabs his wrist and tries to push him away. But he’s always been stronger than Oikawa, even when they were still kids and it’s easy for him to hold Oikawa in place, staring each other down.

It doesn’t take him long to realise that the strange light in Oikawa’s eyes is fear.

He’s afraid, desperately scared.

It’s the same fear that Iwaizumi saw in his otherwise blank eyes back at Kitagawa Daichi, the late nights where Oikawa would push himself to exhaustion under the mantra of _just one more time_.

“I need,” Oikawa’s voice is thin, pleading. “I need to be able to do this. Please, Hajime.”

The words nestle down in Iwaizumi’s stomach, an uncomfortable lump that he’s painfully aware of. But he stands firm and tells Oikawa, “Not tonight,” and Oikawa visibly crumples in his arms, his breathing heavy.

“Fine,” Oikawa finally says, sounding defeated. He pushes at Iwaizumi again and this time Iwaizumi lets him go, moves back a few steps to give him some room as he starts to change back into his normal clothes. Oikawa looks at Iwaizumi, his gaze blank as he repeats, “Not tonight.”

 

It’s only three weeks later that Iwaizumi finds out Oikawa meant what he had said that night, and his agreement of _not tonight_ had really only meant just that.

He comes home early from his part time job, working at a department store stacking boxes (it’s not grand, it’s not prestigious for a resume, but it pays and the hours are good so Iwaizumi thinks why not, while he’s still young and able) to find Oikawa crouched over on the sofa, struggling with something at his feet.

“Hey,” Iwaizumi says in a distracted greeting as he walks over to the kitchen to put away some groceries he picked up. “Got let off early. Wanna see if we can catch a movie?”

“Oh- uh, hi Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, a moment too late and it has Iwaizumi’s hackles rising as he turns to see what mischief Oikawa managed to get himself up to.

But then he stops, staring and Oikawa flushes, knowing he’d been caught red-handed.

“What is that?” Iwaizumi asks flatly.

He gestures at the thick black band around Oikawa’s knee, far more heavy duty than anything Iwaizumi’s seen him wear in the past. The sight of it has anger flaring in Iwaizumi before he consciously realises the reason for it.

“It’s a knee brace,” Oikawa says eventually. “Made especially for returning to sports after an injury. So, perfect for me.”

“What was wrong with the way you were wrapping it before?” Iwaizumi asks, coming around the counter to stand in front of Oikawa. He stares at the brace, unsure of why it was making his stomach roil.

“That’s not enough if I want to play properly,” Oikawa says. He reaches back down to tug the brace into place. “I’m training again. Have been for the past week.”

“Training,” Iwaizumi repeats, folding his arms.

“Yup. Training.” Oikawa finally, _finally_ looks up at him and it’s that same stony faced determination that haunts Iwaizumi with a feeling of dread. But his tone is mild, light as if he were just making a passing observation. “I’m back to doing jump serves now. Not as bad as I thought I would’ve gotten after months of not doing it.”

“You are-” Iwaizumi bites off his own words and stalks back to the kitchen. He’s seen enough of the brace to never want to see it again. Then he turns back around, and sees Oikawa’s startled face before demanding, “Why won’t you just see a doctor? A physiotherapist? Something, _anything_ , get a scan. It’s not just a fucking sprain, Tooru. It’s been months, and it hasn’t fixed itself and you _still want to play on it._ ”

“I want to go back to normal,” Oikawa snaps at him, expression still hard. “But I can’t just wait around, Iwa-chan; I don’t have that kind of time. We have preliminaries in less than two months.”

He stands up then, and Iwaizumi’s eyes widen when Oikawa doesn’t even wobble. He tests all of his weight on it, and it’s as if the injury, the last few months of continual hissed winces and hobbling around, never happened. Oikawa is standing perfectly well and Iwaizumi just stares.

“See? It’s fine,” Oikawa says, a note of satisfaction in his voice. “I’m going to go to practice now. Be back maybe around 9?”

Iwaizumi barely manages a reply before Oikawa is swinging out of the door, and if he favours his right leg at all, it’s not enough to merit any notice.

It is enough though, to start giving Iwaizumi some sort of hope.

Oikawa returns to regular practice, and Iwaizumi still watches him whenever he gets the chance. It’s nice to see Oikawa happier than he’s been in months, it truly is and Iwaizumi finds himself believing more and more that things are fine. Oikawa and his team are well on their way to preparing for the preliminary round between Tokyo’s universities and Iwaizumi couldn’t be prouder.

Oikawa himself is fitting in more training sessions, more time staying back after practice officially ends and Iwaizumi once again finds himself watching from the gymnasium doors as Oikawa pants, staring at the other side of the court with volleyballs littered across the room.

“Just a few more,” Oikawa tells him breathlessly, and he throws the ball high into the air, crouching down to begin his set up into a jump serve.

The number of times Iwaizumi has watched Oikawa’s jump serve must range in the thousands, but he still watches with all the admiration of the first time he’d witnessed one. All grace and fluidity, power and precision wrapped up into a moment of concentration as Oikawa slams the ball home onto the other side of the court.

Iwaizumi doesn’t notice the way that Oikawa makes sure to land on his left leg; only the grin on Oikawa’s face as he turns towards him, bright as the rising star in the east.

\---

The academic year rolls back around to mid-semester exams and Iwaizumi finds himself studying harder and harder. It’s not easy trying to manage his time with a part-time job, having had to skip a few classes each week. Catching up becomes a miniature nightmare.

It’s worrying Oikawa, he knows, from the way Oikawa lingers a little longer when he spots Iwaizumi at the kitchen counter with his head bent over his notes, from the way Oikawa silently pushes over a mug of tea when he finds Iwaizumi rubbing at his eyes in the early morning hours, papers spread around him in disarray.

He’s not sure how Oikawa does it, balancing volleyball practice with his own studies. His marks are nothing to sniff at either, although Iwaizumi remembers they probably averaged a little higher back when he was at Aoba Jousai. When he asks Oikawa about it, all he gets is a shrug and an off-handed, “I’m not a genius, remember? I have to trade off something if I want to stay as good as I am with volleyball.”

It’s after the third night in a row of falling asleep at the kitchen counter that Oikawa seems to make an executive decision, sweeping out all of Iwaizumi’s books and papers into a neat pile before insisting Iwaizumi come to bed with him.

But it’s a hot night, the summer air resounding with cicada calls (even in the city, Iwaizumi thinks with a little wonder) and the humidity heavy enough to make moving feel like too much of an effort. He ends up lying awake, staring at the ceiling with all the little glowing shapes of stars and planets that Oikawa insisted on sticking up there.

His eyes lock on the largest one, a planet with faintly green rings around it. Saturn perhaps, he thinks absently.

Out loud he says, “What are we?” and he hears Oikawa shift next to him.

“That’s a very broad question,” Oikawa answers with a yawn. “The more pertinent question here, Iwa-chan, is why are you still awake?”

“It’s hot.”

“ _I’m_ hot but you somehow manage to sleep just fine every time I’m next to you.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Iwaizumi says, reaching over to pinch the skin over Oikawa’s ribs. He gets a satisfying yelp in reply.

“ _Fine_ , what do you want us to be?” Oikawa says with a grumble.

There’s that question again, Iwaizumi thinks. What does he want from this? Staring up at the glowing little planets above them doesn’t seem to help but Iwaizumi stares all the harder. Eventually, he murmurs, more to himself than in answer, “I don’t still know.”

That catches Oikawa’s attention, and Iwaizumi can feel his gaze turn towards him. “Oh. We’re being serious.”

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says. He feels a hand, warm and calloused, slip into his own and he finally looks at Oikawa.

Bright eyes gleam, staring back at him.

“Well, Hajime. I was under the impression that we were aiming for forever,” Oikawa says a little casually, but there’s an undercurrent of nervousness there and after a few seconds Oikawa adds quietly, “That’s. That’s what I want.”

Iwaizumi’s tongue feels thick and heavy in his mouth, too cumbersome for words while his heart thuds a quickening beat under his ribcage.

It takes everything Iwaizumi has just to manage a raspy, “Yeah. Same,” before he’s rolling on top of Oikawa and kissing him hard as he lets the warm night air envelope the moment hung between them; the high of being in love, and the breathless promise of eternity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It comes crashing down not even a week before preliminaries.

\---

He gets a phone call while he’s at work, the day still stinking hot and muggy from the humid summer air. It’s easy for him to set down the boxes and fish his phone out of his back pocket, the incessant ringtone that Oikawa had chosen for him shrilly piercing the air.

Then he hears that Oikawa had fallen again, and he doesn’t think anymore, just numbly strides out after telling his manager that it was a personal emergency.

When he gets to the gymnasium, Oikawa waves at him from the benches, apparently still cheerful enough to offer Iwaizumi a smile in greeting.

“You got here so soon, Iwa-chan, what happened to work?” Oikawa asks.

He’s got another icepack over his knee, Iwaizumi notices. It’s become a familiar image over the last year and he gestures roughly at it. “What happened this time? I thought you fell?”

“I did, but it’s nothing,” Oikawa insists. He still winces a little when he shifts the icepack, and Iwaizumi can see that it’s once again swelling up. That black knee brace is gone.

Iwaizumi doesn’t say anything to that, ignores it in favour of asking, “When do you get to go home?”

“Well I could leave now,” Oikawa says, frowning. “It’s not like I can play for the rest of today.”

“We’re going then,” Iwaizumi decides and for once, Oikawa agrees amicably.

It doesn’t escape his notice this time that Oikawa favours his right leg, hobbling slightly when Iwaizumi isn’t supporting him properly. The moment they get home, Iwaizumi deposits Oikawa on the couch, grabs a fresh ice pack and sits on the coffee table in front of him, mustering his determination. Oikawa blinks at him slowly.

“Something up?” Oikawa asks. He scrunches up his face when the ice pack touches his skin again.

Iwaizumi takes a deep breath. “I want you to get a scan. Or see a doctor.”

Oikawa stills, but he doesn’t look up from his knee.

“You’re only making it worse,” Iwaizumi tells him. He hates how every word is visibly making Oikawa shut down, but he persists because right now, Oikawa is hurtling a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction with nothing but his own stubbornness and misplaced determination fuelling the way. “It’s not a sprain, you know it can’t be. It’s been months, Tooru. A sprain would’ve healed by now.”

“It is healing,” Oikawa says quietly. But it’s not with the same air of confidence Iwaizumi has gotten to know over the years he’s dealt with Oikawa. It’s that childish stubbornness that drives Oikawa to push himself further than he can go.

Petulant, Iwaizumi thinks with no small measure of irritation. Stubborn idiot.

“Fine,” Iwaizumi says stiffly. A calculated retreat for now.

Dinner is a quiet affair, and they barely speak more than a few words to each other. Oikawa is contemplative, his gaze distant as he stares at some point on the wall behind him. Iwaizumi just watches Oikawa.

It’s sad, almost, how it’s come to this.

Like a love that’s somehow soured; except in their case, it’s a knee injury and a mile high pile of stubbornness and poorly pitted hopes. On both sides.

(Oikawa hopes his knee is okay, it has to be healing, _it has to be_ and Iwaizumi hopes again and again that Oikawa will open his goddamn eyes for once.)

Oikawa is gearing up to say something though; Iwaizumi can tell from the way he starts sneaking little glances at Iwaizumi, the way his fingers alternately curl into fists and pause on the slightly dusty surfaces around the apartment. But he doesn’t say anything until they’re both climbing into bed, and Iwaizumi is settling under the covers, sighing as he finally lets himself relax into the softness of the mattress.

“Hajime,” Oikawa begins, but Iwaizumi suddenly gets the feeling that he doesn’t want to hear this.

Instead, he pulls himself up until he can stare down at Oikawa, drink in the way Oikawa’s eyes widen in surprise, the way his curls fall over the pillow, the soft ‘o’ of his lips; Iwaizumi bends down to kiss him, slow and long. Oikawa moans into it, opening his mouth as his words are temporarily forgotten and his hands reach up to clutch at Iwaizumi’s bare shoulders.

 _I’m still mad_ , Iwaizumi realises bleakly as he shoves his hands down Oikawa’s pants and grabs hold of his cock, already hard. He just don’t want to hear anymore of Oikawa’s excuses.

He’s tired.

( _Be kind to each other_ , Iwaizumi remembers dimly. _Be good to each other._ Neither of them mentioned just how _hard_ that would be.)

In the end, it doesn’t take them more than fifteen minutes to finish and Oikawa stretches, languid and satisfied as he hums out loud. “That was a surprise, Iwa-chan.”

He’s back to normal then, Iwaizumi thinks. He’s not sure if that makes him feel better or worse. “Don’t complain,” is what he says instead.

“Oh I’m not complaining,” Oikawa says, a grin colouring his voice. “Might even want to go again.”

“I have work tomorrow,” Iwaizumi tells him half-heartedly. Oikawa’s hands still somehow manage to make their way over to his side of the bed, creeping over his skin and tickling his ribs where they poke and prod. “Hands off, Assikawa.”

“You’re so stingy.” Oikawa groans, obviously put out. “Though I suppose I have practice too, tomorrow. Fine, maybe not tonight then.”

“Practice?” Iwaizumi is repeating the word before he realises, then he’s sitting up, ignoring the ache in his back. “You’re not going to practice tomorrow.”

“Yes I am?” Oikawa says, raising an eyebrow. A dangerous gleam is starting in his eyes, and it has nothing to do with the dim moonlight streaming into their room.

“You just fucking fell again, you need to get a scan or something,” Iwaizumi says, anger flaring up again.

Not again, a small part of him thinks sadly. Not when things were starting to fix themselves.

(But an even smaller part of Iwaizumi knows, deep down, that things had been slowly simmering; it’s little wonder Iwaizumi is on the knife’s edge most of the time, ready to tip over into rage with the barest nudge Oikawa only seems too happy to provide.)

“What I need, is to keep on routine,” Oikawa says, his voice getting hard. “I need to be able to do that combo with the straight spike before prelims.”

“What don’t you understand?” Iwaizumi snaps. “Your knee is fucking shit. It’s not healing and you know it. The more you keep playing on it, the worst it’s going to get. You _need_ to see someone about it.”

Oikawa is shaking his head, his own angry flush colouring his cheeks. “Don’t tell me what I need, Iwa-chan. I need to not fall behind. I need to _keep going_ and not lose everything just because of some stupid knee injury.”

“You are, an insufferable idiot,” Iwaizumi growls angrily. His hands are clenched at his side now, and if they weren’t, he’s sure they would be trying to shake some sense into Oikawa.

“And you don’t know anything! Don’t tell me what I need to do,” Oikawa hisses out. He’s trembling, sitting up with his shoulders hunched protectively, eyes flashing with anger.

“You’ll work yourself to death!” Iwaizumi snarls. “Is that what you want?”

For a moment it’s deathly silent, and Oikawa’s face is pale. Then with his voice tight, all he says is, “I want to play.”

They stare at each other for moments that feel like they’re stretching into eons; countless words unspoken between them and the weight of each of them pulling at the fragile string that connects them.

It’s Oikawa who makes the first move, roughly hauling himself out of Iwaizumi’s bed with an irritated sigh. He stalks over to the door and lets himself out, leaving it wide open and a _click_ has the living room lights flooding in through the gap.

Iwaizumi didn’t miss the way Oikawa favoured his right leg, barely bending it as he left the room. It sends a fresh wave of fury crashing over Iwaizumi and he turns over, drags the sheets over himself properly and refuses to think about Oikawa and his stubbornness anymore.

Sleep comes slowly to him, but the lights in the living room stay on until he drifts away.

\---

He catches Oikawa sitting on the couch wrapping his leg the next day, face pulled into a pained grimace as he turns the bandage over and under until his knee is firmly secured. There’s a packet of his prescribed painkillers lying on the coffee table.

Iwaizumi stands there, too sleepy and confused at first to process the fact that Oikawa should’ve been off those pain killers months ago. Many months ago. But at least half of the blisters on this packet weren’t popped yet, pills still encased-

Realisation dawns slowly Iwaizumi and he curses himself internally for being so naive. “You’ve been- you haven’t stopped taking those have you?”

Oikawa glances at him, surprise on his face before it’s wiped into careful blankness.

The anger that had faded over the night comes back in full force, thrumming through Iwaizumi until he feels like a live wire, ready to burst. His voice is strangled when he says, “How much, of a _fucking_ idiot are you?”

Oikawa stands, barely faltering (but there was a slight wobble, Iwaizumi didn’t miss that and it feels like a shot through the chest), grabs the packet as he slings his training bag over his shoulder and turns to walk away without saying another word.

It’s only when he gets to the door that Oikawa pauses, hand on the doorknob as he coldly replies, “Don’t bother talking to me if you’re just going to call me names, Iwa-chan.”

They sleep in separate beds that night, for the first time since Oikawa pulled Iwaizumi into his own bed with a coy smile barely masking his earnest eagerness, over a year ago.

 

The next morning just feels like a terrible repeat. Iwaizumi stops in the doorway of his bedroom this time, forcing his face to stay blank as he quietly watches Oikawa wince, wrapping those bandages over and over his knee again.

When he finally looks up and finds Iwaizumi watching him, Oikawa’s face hardens as if he already knows what Iwaizumi is going to say.

As if he’s already made up his mind despite knowing what Iwaizumi will say.

So Iwaizumi keeps his mouth closed, lips in a thin line. Turns on his heel and ambles to the kitchen to grab a glass of milk from the fridge. He drinks it in steady gulps, refusing to look at Oikawa who hasn’t moved from the couch, and then walks stiffly back to his bedroom.

He slams the door when he gets inside, and a few minutes later, he hears the quiet click of their apartment door closing when Oikawa leaves.

 

When he comes back home later that day the apartment is dark and empty, and Iwaizumi drops his keys on the counter with a clatter that rings too loudly in the silence. There’s nothing gone from the fridge when he checks, no tell-tale fog on the bathroom mirror, and the door to Oikawa’s room is at the same angle it was this morning when Iwaizumi left.

So Oikawa hasn’t come home yet, Iwaizumi thinks as he glances at his watch. 11:24pm and no sign or contact from Oikawa since this early morning.

With a mental shrug, Iwaizumi drags his tired feet to his room and changes into his pyjamas before slipping under his covers with a sigh. It’s not his problem if Oikawa still wants to stay out late practicing, knowing that his knee is already shit.

Maybe last week, Iwaizumi would’ve gone out to hunt him down and physically force him to stop, take a break and recover but now-

Oikawa’s big enough to make his own mistakes, Iwaizumi tells himself angrily. He obviously doesn’t need Iwaizumi meddling in his life.

If Oikawa stubbornly refuses to see a physiotherapist for his knee, or even check up with a doctor for why nearly eleven months later he’s still stumbling on uneven steps, knee still crumbling with a mere fall, then it’s out of Iwaizumi’s hands.

He can’t do jack shit about it, and he’s done trying to control Oikawa’s slow self-destruction.

His initial anger slowly bleeds into frustration, and then eventually a weary sense of hopelessness that tires Iwaizumi more than the ache of his body. He drifts off to an uneasy sleep, tossing and turning throughout the night.

 

The red glow of his bedside clock looms in the dark, telling him that it’s 3:14am when he wakes up again. It doesn’t take long to realise what startled him, when he recognises the faint _click_ of the apartment door opening and closing. Soft footfalls draw closer and closer to his room, until his door slowly creaks open and Oikawa’s shadow falls across his bedroom floor.

Iwaizumi lets his eyes close again, lets his breath even out, but he knows that Oikawa knows he’s awake and he lays there, waiting.

For the longest time there’s no movement and Iwaizumi wonders if he’s actually still dreaming and Oikawa still hasn’t come home yet. But then he sees a shift out of the corner of his eye and the bed dips a little.

His breath catches in his throat, the silence stretching on for what feels like an age, then-

“I know...you’re still mad at me.” Oikawa’s voice comes as a whisper, his voice low and croaky. “And you can be mad at me tomorrow but can you _please_ \- just for tonight-”

It’s the way Oikawa’s voice breaks around the last plea that has Iwaizumi turning over with a sigh and propping himself up on his elbows as he rubs the sleep from his tired eyes. But when he finds Oikawa crouched at the foot of the bed, arms resting on top of the quilt while he hesitantly stares at Iwaizumi, teeth digging into his trembling bottom lip; Iwaizumi can’t help it.

He pulls open the quilt, an unspoken peace invitation for the night and Oikawa reaches out for him, clutching at his arm when his fingertips touch skin and Iwaizumi drags him into the warmth of the bed, the security of his embrace.

Iwaizumi feels rather than hears when Oikawa finally cracks and inhales the first shuddering breath.

He’s shaking by the third breath. Crying quietly into Iwaizumi’s shirt by the fifth.

All Iwaizumi can do is hold him tighter, closer; presses his lips to Oikawa’s hair, tangles their legs together and wraps his arms around Oikawa’s body, cradling his head as he lets him cry.

\---

When it comes morning, Iwaizumi sits both of them down at the kitchen counter, hands a puffy-eyed Oikawa his coffee and tells him to start talking.

It turned out that Oikawa had had MRI scans done earlier that week. Yesterday he had gone to the doctor to determine the diagnosis.

And Oikawa tells him, his voice dull and flat, that the MRI scans had shown that he had a serious anterior cruciate ligament tear and that’s the reason he still can’t walk on it properly; the reason his leg gives out when he puts all of his weight on it or tries to climb the stairs.

It won't heal. These tears never heal on their own.

Oikawa's voice is shaky when he finishes, a quiet statement that unless he gets surgery, his professional volleyball career is as good as over.

Iwaizumi doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything at all. The moment the words left Oikawa’s mouth, it had felt like a punch to the stomach. He briefly wonders if he should rest a hand on Oikawa’s shoulder, knowing that Oikawa had to have been feeling the sheer magnitude of the news since yesterday.

The despair of having his dreams ripped out from under him again; and this time, there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

It makes cold threads of guilt curl around Iwaizumi’s heart - for the harshness of his words, the careless anger that fuelled them.

( _Be kind to each other. Be patient._ Iwaizumi wishes desperately that he had tried harder.)

Instead, he asks him quietly, “Are you okay?” and Oikawa breathes deeply once, twice, before he’s finally able to look Iwaizumi in the eye and answer, “No. Not really.”

It breaks Iwaizumi’s heart all over again.

“I feel-” Oikawa stops, looking frustrated as he swallows around his words. “I feel lost. I don’t know what to do Iwa-chan. For once, I can’t make this better - I can’t even try.”

There’s a pause, then Oikawa snorts and it’s a hard, bitter sound. “Trying is what got me into this mess in the first place. I’m sorry.”

Distantly, Iwaizumi hears the echo of his own angry words from those few nights ago and from the look in Oikawa’s dull eyes, he’s probably recalling the same thing.

He’s never hated being right so much before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

\---

It’s a cool autumn day when Iwaizumi walks into the hospital, hand firm on Oikawa’s arm. A few stray leaves blow in with them as the sliding doors open and artificial warmth breezes across their faces.

Oikawa is nervous, he knows. It’s the way his eyes dart around nervously, the way his fingers drummed a tattoo onto his thigh during the train ride here; now, it’s the way he grabs onto Iwaizumi’s hand as if he were the only lifeline Oikawa could see in the ocean of mechanical humming and murmured clinical whispers.

Somehow, Oikawa still manages to charm the receptionist as he outlines what he’s here for.

_Reconstruction surgery._

They end up waiting on the cushy sofas to the side of the reception, Oikawa looking lost as he stares at his knee and Iwaizumi determinedly trying to pay attention to the muted overhead television.

Their hands stay locked together, fingers intertwined.

It feels like an age before Oikawa is squeezing his hand lightly, and Iwaizumi turns to him in surprise.

“Hajime- ” Oikawa starts, then clears his voice. “I just wanted- just wanted to say- ”

Oikawa’s voice gets lost in his throat, and Iwaizumi can see him looking frustrated as he tries to get his tongue to cooperate to no avail.

In the end, he takes pity on Oikawa and pulls him into a hug, fiercely tight. It takes a long moment before Oikawa is relaxing in his grip, breathing out a sigh of resignation as he slips his own arm around Iwaizumi.

“Thanks,” is the muffled response Iwaizumi gets. “Love you. And thank you. I’m scared. Really scared, Iwa-chan.”

A beat. Then, “Yeah, I know.”

Oikawa shifts in his arms. “What if it doesn’t work?” he murmurs, his voice quiet. “What if that’s really it, I can’t play volleyball _anymore_ \- ”

“Then we’ll figure it out,” Iwaizumi says firmly, when Oikawa’s voice starts to crack. His breath fans over Oikawa’s messy curls of hair. “We have plenty of time. Both of us.”

The promise of _forever_ goes unvoiced between them, as steadfast and loud as the thudding of their hearts.

“Okay,” Oikawa finally says, turning his face into Iwaizumi’s chest. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oikawa's knee support has always intrigued me (why is it there? is it possibly going to become significant in canon?) and having too many friends who've had knee related injuries, I thought why not. Let's take this idea and run with it. I also wanted to explore Oikawa's characterisation, as a person who tries so goddamn _hard_ to be good at what he loves, being put in a position where he's being brought down by something he can't control or fix himself. This nearly turned into a character study, but then I also needed to work out my sad IwaOi feels and Iwaizumi needed a lot more love, so I guess this is how twelve thousand words of bittersweet romance and knee injuries came out. 
> 
> Whether or not this gets a sequel with a happier ending depends on how much time and dedication I have for a recovery fic. Thanks to [auber_jean](http://archiveofourown.org/users/auber_jean/pseuds/auber_jean) for beta; and for putting the 'sweet' in bittersweet! I couldn't write a happy ending to save my life; I appreciate every piece of input you've given me. 
> 
> If anyone wants to talk headcanons, shipping, or whatnot, you're more than welcome to send me a message at [arsenicjay](http://arsenicjay.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Comments and constructive criticism always appreciated.


End file.
